A Free-form Pioneer

Ornette Coleman, who plays here Sunday, changed the way musicians approached jazz

Photo by Scott Griese/IMAGEDIRECT Ornette Coleman, here performing at the 2000 Bell Atlantic Jazz Festival in New York, is one of the giants of avant-garde jazz. 'Ornette's tone is so unique,' says Austin jazz drummer Chris Cogburn. Ornette Coleman When: 7 p.m. Sunday Where: Bass Concert Hall Tickets: $20-$45 Information: 477-6060, www.utpac.org

The pioneering jazz saxophonist from Fort Worth wasn't the only one to influence the Austin-based band leader. He drew inspiration from John Coltrane, Albert Ayler, Sun Ra, Eric Dolphy — all the iconic names of the "New Thing," the moment in the 1960s when jazz rethought its boundaries and became free from melodic, harmonic and rhythmic constraints.

But Ornette — and, unless it's to the man's face, fans just call him "Ornette," like "Miles" — is The Man as far as Coke's concerned. And unlike 'Trane, Ayler and the rest, Ornette is still going strong, and you can bet that Coke will be there to hear the 74-year-old legend play at Bass Concert Hall on Sunday.

In fact, it's tough to imagine that any Austin jazz musicians will miss the show. In the city's thriving avant-garde jazz community — clustered around coffee shops and clubs such as the Green Muse and the Church of the Friendly Ghost — Ornette is openly acknowledged as the last giant standing, a lion in winter who still knows how to roar.

"There's a huge influence," Coke says from an airport tarmac in Houston, having just finished a Creative Opportunity Orchestra gig in New York.

"On my album 'New Visions,' we're not using harmonic instruments," Coke says. "We have two melodic voices out front, the way that (Ornette) played with Dewey Redman or Don Cherry.

"We're playing pretty fluid melodic statements based on thematic material rather than song-forms," Coke continues, referring to Ornette's theory of "harmolodics," a complicated and sometimes vague idea about how melody, harmony and rhythm could be given equal weight in a piece. Harmolodics provided a theoretical frame upon which many an improviser has rested his or her music.

The punch line, of course, is that so much of Ornette's ideas have become part of mainstream jazz. Newcomers to his music might not even regard it as all that strange.

Coke suggests heading to your local library to find "Beauty is a Rare Thing," the well-annotated box set of Ornette's 1960s albums on Atlantic Records (consult also the Nov. 11 XL story on 10 essential Ornette albums). "These days, the early work seems kind of tame in comparison to a lot of stuff, but it was so jarring at the time that I think a little historical context is in order," Coke says.

Other musicians in Austin's improvisational jazz community look to Ornette for theoretical guidance.

Carl Smith, 29, is a saxophonist with the band E.C.F.A. Smith, whose album "Die Faden" was just released on the San Antonio label Pecan Crazy Records, remains amazed at Ornette's ability to combine rhythm and melody. "He totally swung and was totally able to express his innermost self," Smith says. "His work made other musicians think they wanted to invent their own way to express their feelings."

Chris Cogburn is a local drummer with various improvisational outfits. Like Smith, Cogburn was as much hypnotized by what Ornette represented as his music.

"Ornette's tone is so unique," Cogburn says, "There's something just so joyful and free about it, it's just amazing listening to him in different contexts," referring to Ornette's movement from acoustic music in the 1960s to his electric, "harmolodic funk" band Prime Time in the 1980s.

But Cogburn also sees Ornette as the gateway drug to European free improvisers such as Evan Parker and Derek Bailey. "People of my generation and younger are being influenced by European improvisers who were influenced by Ornette and Eric Dolphy and like in the '60s," Cogburn, 30, says.

But it's not just Austin's hard-core free improvisers who find joy in Ornette's music. Neil Blumofe is a hazan (or cantor) with Congregation Agudas Achim. The 33-year old singer and musician also recently released a jazz album, "Moses' Muses," that combines Jewish cantor vocal styles with jazz.

"It was the way he approached the music," Blumofe says. "There was this idea that Ornette played unprepared, which was incorrect. He would research the modes and the scales and find the possibilities in jazz." It's this combination of heavy research and improvisation that appeals to both the scholar and the musician in Blumofe. "His music is based on intense work, but he also comes at it from such a deeply spiritual sense of things." This dovetails with Blumofe's life in the temple and the studio.

"A cantor can prepare music, but the heart of what we do is improvise."